Nothing

Nothing exceptional going on but exhaustion.  Bah!

I was soooooo tired last night and, so, cut out on the late family dinner (uncle & aunt had arrived after a long day of travel from California) at 9:30 to gas up in town before I headed home.  Got home at 11:00 after having spent a little extra time at the gas station responding to some texts before I headed out of town and out of cellphone reception.  (Blessed be the friends who are picking up TP for me in the big city today!  Ha.)  

Anyway, my point is this:  I was so tired when I got home and yet COULDN'T turn my brain off.  I was still tossing and turning when I heard the cuckoo clock strike 2:00 AM!  Finally, I remembered a trick I'd invented a couple of nights earlier.  Gawd knows how I came to it, but I started singing out loud.  Quietly, like soothing a child.  This turned my brain off and I kept singing until . . . I woke up this morning!  Worked like a charm.  Wish I'd remembered that around midnight instead of two hours later!


I had a busy, busy day yesterday first working here from home and then heading into town for an appointment with my realtor.  Then I borrowed Papa Pea and one of his Suburbans to pick up what I thought was a free maple work table . . . and which turned out to be a nice maple dining room table!  Someone had stripped it in preparation for refinishing . . . but not gotten around to those final stages.  Anyway, work table or something I'll eventually turn into something nicer, it's mine now!  After a quick pre-dinner with Mom & Dad, I FINALLY headed into the office at 7:00 PM!  How's that for a wonky schedule?

Anyway, my appt. with the realtor added more stress to my day.  I'd pretty much settled on the new building / location for my new business since losing the ideal one those couple of weeks ago.  The space we looked at yesterday had long been on the calendar, but I figured it would be a super-quick in-and-out with no real potential.  Yeah, well . . . 2 HOURS later I left with my head spinning and more confused than ever!

It's really down to two properties now.  Allow me to work through them with you?  And, I know, I still haven't told you WHAT I'm going to do there, but it would be the same business for either location.  Looking at the six options I'd written about on August 26th, I've scratched off four of them:

Option South:  Not buy-able, only rentable.  To get the funding I'm applying for, I need to buy.  Besides, it's teensy-weensy and I'd have to alter the business plan quite a lot.

Option RH:  Sale price WAY too high, hardly any parking off the busy highway and farthest out of town.


Option BS:  Already being turned into apartments.


Option GF:  Still a maybe on this one, but I really don't think it's an option . . . although that's how I felt about Option PP until I looked at it yesterday.  Have word into the realtor about this one.


So, that leaves us with the front-runners of Options P & PP:


Option P:  Almost entirely ready-to-go.  In the Big Scheme of things, I would have VERY little to do in order to begin taking customers there.  The biggest cons are that there really is no potential for profit when I eventually sell.  Because it's right in town, there's no option to physically expand it or anything like that.  It's surrounded by buildings.  The only thing I could (and would) do is improve on what's already there.  The other con is that the owner does not want to dicker much AT ALL on price.  So, while it's practically a turnkey operation, the monthly payments will be substantial and particularly challenging in the slow months.


Option PP:  The potential here is HUGE.  It's a GORGEOUS, 3-acre piece of property with beautiful views of the lake.  There are lots of old, HEAVILY-producing apple trees, etc. on the property.  There's a large house on the land that wouldn't take much to get ready to rent out for, my realtor says, $800 a month.  That equals a big chunk of a mortgage payment taken care of.  A couple of buildings would need to be torn down eventually, but there is oodles of storage in & potential for the buildings that are there & would remain.  The turn-around potential is massive, when it would come time to sell.  Matter of fact, if I mowed the grass, replaced some fascia, and painted, I could sell it again in a month for $20-$50,000 more!  The biggest problem is that the kitchen has few appliances (I'd need to purchase a LOT to get it functioning), and there is NO infrastructure (tables, chairs, etc. for customers).  More purchasing necessary.  The biggest pro is that I could get it for DIRT-CHEAP.  I'm going to call B today, Mama & Papa Pea's carpenter - who's also a certified house inspector - to look at it.  At this point, I can't tell whether it's a run-down place with huge potential or . . . a Money Pit.  I also have an e-mail in to my financial guy, asking whether or not improvements / expenses (with written estimates) that would need to occur before greeting customers could be included in the funding I'll receive from them.  If B okays the structure(s) and the funding allows those modifications / inclusions of cost . . . well, I just might go that route.


But, gad, was it exhausting.  IS exhausting!  I really thought going to see the property yesterday would be a 10-minute "yep, it's a dump!" and that would be that.  Instead, I'm now faced with more thinking, planning, figuring, everything, ing, ing!!!


And then there's my dear, dear friend facing horrible health complications and surgery.  We're all trying to rally around her and do what we can . . . .  :(  The only "up" of her situation is that it puts MY stresses into a MUCH "lesser" category.


So.  Advice, anyone?  Can you please wave your collective magic wands and make all my decisions clear and RIGHT for me?